Wallace Henley

"The West is losing faith in its own future," reads the headline in a recent report by Gideon Rachman appearing in Financial Times. (December 9, 2013) Only 33 percent of Americans believe their children will live better, and the pessimism about the future is even worse in Europe, according to a poll noted in Rachman's analysis.

The math gremlin wouldn't give up, and confounded the numbers on May 21, 2011, and again in October, 2011. Camping kept proving one of Albert Einstein's axioms: "As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality."

Barely two months earlier, on November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy had been gunned down as his motorcade entered the Plaza. Fresh remembrance chilled my wife and me as we crossed the spot where Kennedy's limo had ducked under the looming Texas School Book Depository. Up there, Oswald had aimed with cold calculation at Kennedy's head.

Right there the celebration of reason becomes problematic. In its zesty altar call, the atheist billboard has veered into landmine territory. This philosophical-psychological zone is called "epistemology" – theories about how we know what we know.

Through their billboards, the atheists are shouting propositions (proposals of ideas or actions about which one must make a decision) to passersby. The Bible is also a collection of propositional truths, based on revelation from what billions across history have regarded as Ultimate Authority. So the Battle of the Billboards (Christians are rebutting atheist claims on billboards) signals that atheists now want to enter the War of Propositions in a big way: The billboards versus the Bible.

The fruit of Lau's ministry could present a quandary to staunch cessationists like John MacArthur. Healing, the Laus discovered in front-line ministry in Indonesia, is not limited to the human body. Sometimes, they found, people must be freed from demonic control, in New Testament style. So if sign gifts, miracles and healing ended with the Apostles, what is the explanation for what happens through the ministry of the Laus and tens of thousands of others like them? Would MacArthur term their work "strange fire"?

John MacArthur and his Strange Fire conference bring to mind the bombing runs by World War 2 flyers on bridges their enemies might have used strategically. MacArthur seems equally passionate about no bridges between cessationists and continuationists, traditionalists and charismatics.

MacArthur's passion for rightly dividing the word of truth is commendable. A huge number of readers – including Pentecostals and charismatics – have been aided by MacArthur's careful studies of biblical passages, and inspired by his passion for sound doctrine. This makes his sweeping condemnations of charismatics even sadder.

"Each of us has a vision of good and evil. We have to encourage people to move towards what they think is Good." That line, spoken by Pope Francis to Italian interviewer Eugenio Scalfari, may be the mantra for the postmodern age.

Imagine somewhere in eternity Pope Francis bumps into Francis Schaeffer, the Presbyterian pastor-theologian-missionary-philosopher, who died in 1984. They share with each other that on earth people knew them both as "Francis." As they talk, they find more commonality: a mutual passion for art.

Confession: I could be a wannabe Catholic. Not long ago, on a trip to Paris, my wife and I were in Notre Dame Cathedral during Mass. A congregation in the thousands refused to be distracted by gaping tourists as the great organ exploded in music summoning all the human senses to look up and contemplate the transcendent glory and mystery of God.

Actually, however, this loss of cultural approval might be the best thing to happen to the church and Western civilization in more than a thousand years. The whole story of the early church in Rome shows why there can be hope in the darkness.

But in a deconstructive age intent on pulverizing the value system that makes authentic civilization and freedom possible (and not mere anarchy) the church must take on the prophetic function, pointing to the "straight and narrow way."

A millennial season is fading for the church and western civilization, and a period of tribulation is rising. I'm not saying The Millennium has come and is now going, or that The Tribulation is upon us. Rather, I use these terms in their broader symbolic sense, in which a "millennial season" signifies a period of favor for the church, and the advance of its message and ministries, while a tribulation-time symbolizes the withdrawal of that favor and the ensuing consequences.

The House of Representatives voted July 23 against proposals for atheist chaplains in the U.S. military. The vote was an overwhelming defeat for the idea. Only two Republicans and 171 Democrats voted for atheist chaplains. Contrary to what you may be reading, Christians should be disappointed and atheists should be glad.

There are two clear sides in this case, and they are not Trayvon Martin's cause on the one hand or George Zimmerman's support on the other. The real sides are exploitation or servanthood. For the body of Christ, there can be no question as to which side to take.

The President of the United States is in many ways like the CEO of Uncle Sam, Inc., the world' biggest corporation. As such, he, like all other top executives and presidents before him, sets corporate culture.

Most of the historic imbroglios have involved sexual affairs or money. The Nixon-era transgressions, however, took a more sinister turn, that of attempting to manipulate government agencies to silence opponents, and chilling the press in its attempts to investigate and report. Now it seems the unfolding of the reportedly scandalous layers of the Obama regime may be every bit as extensive.

"To what does one assimilate in modern America?" That question was posed by Nathan Glazer and Daniel Patrick Moynihan in their 1963 book, Beyond the Melting Pot. It still is the most important but most neglected issue in the immigration policy debate.

"Love wins" – but does it always? Are there situations when "love" might even cause people to "lose"? Will the Supreme Court become the grand arbiter of what love is even as it became the definer of what a human life is and when it begins? As the Supremes deliberate on the nature of marriage, will they be the new Moses descending the mountain with freshly chiseled tablets of revised law to be universal in defining marriage?